• Bo Yuan, Han-Qing Liu, Zheng-Rong Yang, Yong-Xin Chen, Zhi-Yong Liu, Kai Zhang, Cheng Wang, Wei-Xin Li, Ya-Wen An, Jian-Chun Wang, and Shuo Song.
• Science and Education Department, Shenzhen Samii Medical Center, 1 Jinniu West Road, Pingshan District, Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China.
• Sci Rep. 2020 Jul 17; 10 (1): 11887.

AbstractRecently, the recurrence of positive SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA in recovered COVID-19 patients is receiving more attention. Herein we report a cohort study on the follow-up of 182 recovered patients under medical isolation observation. Twenty (10.99%) patients out of the 182 were detected to be SARS-CoV-2 RNA positive (re-positives), although none showed any clinical symptomatic recurrence, indicating that COVID-19 responds well to treatment. Patients aged under 18 years had higher re-positive rates than average, and none of the severely ill patients re-tested positive. There were no significant differences in sex between re-positives and non-re-positives. Notably, most of the re-positives turned negative in the following tests, and all of them carried antibodies against SARS-CoV-2. This indicates that they might not be infectious, although it is still important to perform regular SARS-CoV-2 RNA testing and follow-up for assessment of infectivity. The findings of this study provide information for improving the management of recovered patients, and for differentiating the follow-up of recovered patients with different risk levels.

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